sweetpea86 writes: 4G mobile networks are inherently less secure than 3G networks and other mobile protocols, security experts have warned. Before 4G, all voice and data traffic between the user’s device and the core of the network was encrypted and tightly-controlled by the mobile operator. Now, with 4G technology, encryption is only mandatory over the main Radio Access Network (RAN). The 'backhaul' portion of the network is unencrypted by default, leaving it potentially vulnerable to hackers. Some operators do encrypt the backhaul traffic on their networks, using a technology called IPsec, but many operators around the world, including some in Europe, have chosen to deploy 4G leaving the traffic between the core network and some or all of their cell sites vulnerable to attack.

sweetpea86 writes: Cisco has teamed up with robotics firm iRobot to create their own enterprise version of the 'Sheldonbot' from US comedy series The Big Bang Theory. The robot, known as Ava 500, brings together iRobot’s autonomous navigation with Cisco’s TelePresence system to enable a remote worker sitting in front of a video collaboration system to meet with colleagues in an office setting or take part in a facility tour.

sweetpea86 writes: A student at the University of Central Lancashire has created a telepresence robot which mimics human behaviour. Known as MAKIIS, the robot is inspired by the Sheldonbot from US comedy 'The Big Bang Theory'. Moving on wheels and projecting a live video of the user's face via an iPad, MAKIIS can allow an office worker in London to chat with a colleague in Paris as if they were in the same room.

sweetpea86 writes: Silicon photonics is driving the development of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), enabling much greater I/O bandwidth density and reducing power consumption, according to Cisco. Speaking at the Cisco Tech Editor's Conference in San Jose, Rob Lloyd, President of Sales and Development, said that one of the things that makes Cisco believe that it can lead in the development in the Internet of Everything is that it makes ASICs – the processors that sit underneath the products it delivers.

sweetpea86 writes: Despite the obvious enterprise shift towards mobility, Jeff Clarke, vice chairman and president of Dell's Global Operations and End User Computing Solutions, is adamant that Dell has no plans to start making smartphones. “We've been really clear about smartphones – we're not going to do smartphones. We're not going to be in the smartphone hardware business,” he said at the Dell World conference in Austin. Instead, the company plans to focus on bringing Windows 8 laptops, tablets and convertibles to the market, and building a BYOD platform with its acquired Kace, Wyse, SonicWall and Quest technologies.

sweetpea86 writes: Age UK has teamed up with Cognatel MVNO CyCell to develop a no-frills mobile phone for the elderly. According to research by Ofcom, over half (52%) of people aged 75 plus own a mobile phone, but these devices are often relegated to a drawer due to their technological complexity. Age UK hopes to change this with the launch of a new £55 device, known as the Age UK My Phone. The device comes with a maximum of eight buttons which can be customised to call pre-programmed numbers with a single press.

sweetpea86 writes: ... but retails for $130 more. Teardowns of the Apple iPad Mini and the Amazon Kindle Fire HD have revealed that the two devices cost almost the same amount to manufacture, despite the retail prices being significantly different. Andrew Rassweiler, senior principal analyst of teardown services for IHS iSuppli, explains that Apple is sticking to the premium brand strategy it has always used for its media tablet and smartphone products, whereas Amazon is banking on content. Could Amazon's strategy pose a competitive challenge to Apple’s media tablet dominance?

sweetpea86 writes: The UK government is in discussions with Cloudera – a distributor of Hadoop-based software and services for the enterprise – to determine how it can best make use of big data technologies. Speaking to Techworld at the IP Expo in London yesterday, Doug Cutting, creator of Hadoop and chief architect at Cloudera, said that he had met with the UK government's Policy Exchange team earlier in the week, to discuss how it can use big data without becoming Big Brother. “That is the primary concern actually of how they roll this out – how they can do that without freaking people out and becoming Big Brother,” he said.

Apple has lost its appeal against a UK ruling that Samsung had not infringed its design rights.A judge at the High Court in London had originally ruled in July that the look of Samsung's Galaxy Tab computers was not too similar to designs registered in connection with the iPad.He said at the time that Samsung's devices were not as "cool" because they lacked Apple's "extreme simplicity".He also ordered Apple to run ads saying Samsung had not infringed its rights.Judge Birss said one notice should remain on Apple's website for at least half a year while other adverts should be placed in various magazines and newspapers to "correct the damaging impression" that Samsung was a copycat.A spokeswoman for Samsung said it welcomed the latest ruling.
"We continue to believe that Apple was not the first to design a tablet with a rectangular shape and rounded corners and that the origins of Apple's registered design features can be found in numerous examples of prior art."Should Apple continue to make excessive legal claims in other countries based on such generic designs, innovation in the industry could be harmed and consumer choice unduly limited.". Apple has not released a statement.Three judges were involved in the Court of Appeal review of the case.
Apple had reasserted its claim saying that the front face and overall shape of the tablets was the most important factor — rather than the overall design — because users would spend most of their time looking at a tablet's screen and holding it.One of the judges — who noted he owned an iPad himself — explained why Apple had lost the appeal in his ruling."Because this case (and parallel cases in other countries) has generated much publicity, it will avoid confusion to say what this case is about and not about," wrote Sir Robin Jacob."It is not about whether Samsung copied Apple's iPad. Infringement of a registered design does not involve any question of whether there was copying: the issue is simply whether the accused design is too close to the registered design according to the tests laid down in the law." "So this case is all about, and only about, Apple's registered design and the Samsung products.""

sweetpea86 writes: Oracle customers are facing a big data problem, and Hadoop is the answer – reluctant as Oracle is to admit it. Speaking at the Oracle product and strategy update in London yesterday, Oracle president Mark Hurd said that the company's customers are growing their data up to 40% a year, putting tremendous pressure on IT budgets. Oracle offers a range of products to help customers shrink their data, such as Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud and Oracle Exalytics, said Hurd. However, when it comes to dealing with real Big Data problems, Oracle still relies on Hadoop, the open-source software framework licensed under the Apache v2 license.

sweetpea86 writes: Virgin Media Business has announced plans to launch a wholesale small cell network that will enable UK mobile operators to deliver faster and more robust internet connections than current 3G services or Wi-Fi. The company intends to offer metrocells as a hosted managed service, so mobile operators can simply add their own radio heads onto Virgin's infrastructure. Kevin Baughan, director of wireless at Virgin Media Business, said this “small cells as a service” concept should appeal to mobile operators because it is more cost effective than each operator building their own small cell infrastructure.

sweetpea86 writes: The Information Commissioner Christopher Graham has questioned the effectiveness of the EU cookie directive, suggesting that it was “dreamed up by politicians in Brussels” without the appropriate market research to back it up. Speaking at the launch of a new report called The Data Dialogue by think tank Demos, Graham said that policies around the use of personal data by companies and public sector organisations need to be evidence-based.

sweetpea86 writes: Visitors to graveyards in the UK may soon be able to learn much more about the people buried there, with the introduction of quick response (QR) codes on headstones. Chester Pearce in Poole is the first funeral director to offer families the option of interactive gravestones with embedded QR codes. The £300 QR codes are etched on to small granite or metal squares before being embedded or glued on to the gravestones. When scanned using a smartphone or tablet, the code launches a personalised web page dedicated to the deceased, complete with pictures, videos and contributions from family and friends.

sweetpea86 writes: The European Union's proposal to give internet users the “right to be forgotten” is unfeasible, according to Bob Plumridge, chief technology officer for EMEA at Hitachi Data Systems. Plumridge believes that the people who are coming up with ideas to improve privacy do not understand the limits of today's technologies. He said that, for the right to be forgotten to become a reality, all of these individual records would need to be linked together. However, having links between all copies of the data means that if one copy is corrupted, all the others are at risk of being affected.

sweetpea86 writes: Mekong Development has become the first bank in Vietnam to launch fingerprint authentication enabled debit cards. Fingerprints are captured by Mekong Development at the point of opening an account, and then can be used, instead of a pin, to access funds. Not only has Mekong’s account base tripled through the use of fingerprint technology since its launch in June, but the deposit balance per debit card account is two times higher than a regular account.